Philippa Neave: The unexpected challenges of a country's first election
Philippa Neave: Los desafíos inesperados de la primer elección en un país | Philippa Neave
Philippa Neave is senior advisor on the UN's Lexicon of Electoral Terminology. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
there's no word for it,
we know what we're talking about.
sabemos de lo que hablamos.
We have the vocabulary.
y el vocabulario.
where democracy doesn't exist,
dónde no existe la democracia,
no words to describe the concepts
que describan los conceptos
of electoral assistance,
de asistencia electoral,
para que organicen,
sus primeras elecciones.
who goes around the world
que va por el mundo
on countries that can't handle it."
en países que no la saben manejar."
does not impose anything on anybody.
no le imponen nada a nadie.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
de los Derechos Humanos de 1948,
de elegir quien nos gobierne.
to choose who governs them.
a todo el público.
campañas informativas
designing information campaigns
to participate or to vote
de participar o votar,
y cómo registrarse;
campaign to reach out to women
especifica para captar a las mujeres
because very often in this work,
regularmente en este trabajo,
that I've been doing it
que llevo haciendo esto,
high levels of illiteracy,
de analfabetismo,
it was in 2005,
on the same day.
en el mismo día,
era increíblemente difícil,
are so incredibly difficult,
hacerlo de esa forma.
explaining two elections instead of one
dos elecciones en vez de una,
so many people wanted to take part,
mucha gente quería participar,
which is the parliamentary elections.
las elecciones parlamentarias.
we had even more candidates.
teníamos aún más candidatos.
del Consejo Provincial.
a lot of symbols and things like that.
muchos símbolos y cosas parecidas.
in Southern Sudan.
en el Sur de Sudán.
un caso muy diferente.
who had never, of course, voted,
que nunca había votado,
high levels of illiteracy,
muy extremos de analfabetismo,
the size of Texas, more or less.
del tamaño de Texas más o menos.
de caminos pavimentados,
where we landed the planes
aterrizamos los aviones
materiales electorales, etc.,
about what a box looked like.
idea de como lucía una caja.
was obviously the way to go,
era la manera de proceder,
by that enormous movement
por ese enorme movimiento
there was Egypt, there was Yemen.
historical moment.
with the election commission,
about various aspects of the election,
aspectos de la elección,
that I hadn't actually heard before,
que nunca había oído,
con jordanos, egipcios,
I'd worked with Jordanians, Egyptians,
fue la palabra "observador".
was this word "observer."
los observadores electorales,
hablaba sobre "mulahiz" en árabe.
was talking about "mulahiz" in Arabic.
in a passive sort of sense,
una franela azul clara."
he was wearing a light blue shirt."
era azul clara o no?
the shirt was light blue or not?
muchos tratados,
by all kinds of treaties,
that control function in it.
la atención que en Egipto,
of the fact that in Egypt,
que significa "seguir."
which means "to follow."
seguidores de una elección.
followers of an election.
that's already accepted and in use,
que fue aceptado y es utilizado,
que significa "un controlador."
which means "a controller."
for one concept. This is not good.
Eso no está bien.
we thought perhaps it's our role
que quizás era nuestro rol
that the words are understood
la región árabe.
of Electoral Terminology,"
de Terminología Electoral,"
in eight different countries.
lo que se necesita saber
of everything you need to know
una elección democrática.
a democratic election.
cuál sería la palabra adecuada
about what would be the appropriate word
y eso es parte del problema.
and that's part of the problem.
that speak Arabic,
that is used across the whole region
a otro el lenguaje cotidiano varía
to the next in day to day language and use
added layer of complication.
fully ripe, if you like,
nuevas expresiones.
new expressions.
que teníamos en la región.
eight correspondents in the region.
o forzar la armonización
to harmonize or force harmonization.
entendimiento entre las personas.
understanding among people.
the different expressions in use
expresiones en uso
it took three years to produce this
que después de tres años lo produjimos
el borrador y lo llevamos a su ejecución,
and took it actually into the field,
electorales de los países,
in all these different countries,
el borrador,
en noviembre de 2014 en el Cairo.
in November 2014 in Cairo.
Publicamos 10.000 copias.
We published 10,000 copies.
3000 veces en formato PDF.
off the internet in PDF form.
que lo iban a implementar en Somalía.
that they've taken it up in Somalia.
de esto en Somalía,
a version of this in Somalia,
para el Manejo de los Cuerpos Electorales,
for Electoral Management Bodies,
una unidad de observación panárabe,
built up a pan-Arab observation unit,
es bastante complicada.
is quite high-pitched.
son bastante técnicos,
are quite technical,
conocer al menos un tercio de esta.
need to know at least a third of it.
de educación cívica como la conocemos.
of what we know as civic education.
en la escuela.
en esa parte del mundo,
in that part of the world,
the right of everybody
un material de referencia
producing a work of reference
aplicaciones de celular,
que pueden ser usadas
that can be used now
a las personas,
about the Middle East.
la miseria en medio oriente.
de la guerra y el terrorismo.
We hear terrorism.
los hechos negativos
and all this horrible negative news
lo que piensa la gente común,
the people, the everyday people, thinking?
let's give them the words.
el conocimiento.
with the knowledge tools
con las herramientas
does not need to be silent.
no tiene que ser silenciosa.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Philippa Neave - Electoral consultantPhilippa Neave is senior advisor on the UN's Lexicon of Electoral Terminology.
Why you should listen
Philippa Neave specializes in electoral communications and education, devising information and training campaigns for voters and candidates in emerging democracies. Since 2005 she has worked in electoral assistance as a consultant for the United Nations, developing strategies to inform people on their voting rights, with particular emphasis on reaching women and people with low levels of literacy. She has worked on elections in Afghanistan, Iraq UAE, Jordan, Turkey, Cambodia, Madagascar, Southern Sudan and Tunisia.
An Arabic speaker, Neave initiated and conducted a three-year project to produce the first Arabic lexicon of electoral terminology. With close to 500 entries, the tri-lingual (Arabic, English and French) lexicon provides clear and accurate explanations of key concepts and terms in the field of elections. Neave's approach included a groundbreaking effort to account for Arabic language variations across the region in eight participating countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Tunisia and Yemen.
Neave has always worked with words. For 15 years she was a reporter specialising in the Middle East. After a year and a half in Cairo, she became a foreign correspondent for an international features syndicate in based Rome, Paris and New York. Later, in London, she was chief editor of a magazine on arts and culture and in Paris after that, she was chief editor of European Press Network. She then left the news business and worked as Middle East Director for a British charity, based in Beirut for five years.
Her interest in democracy building goes back to the time when soon after leaving university, she served for several years as deputy Secretary General of the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation, organising and participating in the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Dialogue.
Born in 1960 in France to an English father and a Danish mother, Neave grew up bilingual. She studied Arabic at Durham University in the UK and obtained a BA degree. She speaks seven languages, including Arabic, and is based in Paris.
Philippa Neave | Speaker | TED.com